Dreams No. 2
1965 Jacob Lawrence
tempera on fiberboard
35 3/4 x 24 in. (90.8 x 61.0 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation
319
The nearest Dream recedes — unrealized —
The Heaven we chase,
Like the June Bee — before the School Boy,
Invites the Race —
Stoops — to an easy Clover —
Dips — evades — teases — deploys —
Then — to the Royal Clouds
Lifts his light Pinnace —
Heedless of the Boy —
Staring — bewildered — at the mocking sky —
Homesick for steadfast Honey —
Ah, the Bee flies not
That brews that rare variety!
-Emily Dickinson
"His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people--his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God... and he must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Ch. 6
Dreams No. 2
1965
Jacob Lawrence
tempera on fiberboard
35 3/4 x 24 in. (90.8 x 61.0 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation
319
The nearest Dream recedes — unrealized —
The Heaven we chase,
Like the June Bee — before the School Boy,
Invites the Race —
Stoops — to an easy Clover —
Dips — evades — teases — deploys —
Then — to the Royal Clouds
Lifts his light Pinnace —
Heedless of the Boy —
Staring — bewildered — at the mocking sky —
Homesick for steadfast Honey —
Ah, the Bee flies not
That brews that rare variety!
-Emily Dickinson
"His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people--his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God... and he must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Ch. 6
Connect Two
Shall We Journey Upon The Open Road?